Imprison the Royal Family and Abolish the Monarchy

As the world waits with bated breath for the emergence of the latest—and cutest—member of the British Royal Family, allow us to put forth a gentle reminder: In a just world, this innocent child would be going up for adoption, since its family would have been imprisoned for crimes against humanity.

The Royal Family is no better than a family of mobsters. It sucks its sustenance from the public coffers, enriching itself greatly at the expense of poor taxpaying citizens. It operates not as a meritocracy, but through strict nepotism and strategic alliances. And its strength is a rough measure of the lack of civilization in a particular culture. To be completely clear, we are not suggesting that people should "pay less attention" to the Royal Family, or that the UK should reduce the amount of money it spends on this obscene relic of a brutal monarchical past. We are suggesting that the Royal Family should, as an institution, be completely abolished, and that its remaining members be imprisoned and forced to work for the remainder of their lives to, in some token way, repay the public for all of these years of financial support. Perhaps by making license plates, or breaking rocks.

It is amusing to reflect upon the imperial past of England, and the inherent assumptions of racial and cultural superiority that fueled it, while also noting the fact that the UK still to this very day continues to offer slavish financial, political, and cultural support to a tiny family elite notable for nothing except the lineage of the particular person's vagina from which they slunk. The persistence of the Royal Family, and the worshipful attention that it draws from the British public, is the sort of primitive superstitious voodoo that puts to shame any of the animist rituals that the colonial British would have derided as uncivilized.

The Royal Family is more than an international embarrassment, though; it is a crime against the British public. It represents the taking of precious public resources for the most undemocratic, elitist, and unproductive use. It is akin to taxing the American public to support the Kardashian family. Currently, the British monarchy gets 15% of the annual revenues generated by the Crown Estate. (Not to be confused with the slew of luxurious private estates that they own.) That will be well over $50 million this year. There are 2.5 million unemployed people in the UK right now. It is not too presumptuous to suggest that they might be able to find more productive uses for that money.

It is often suggested that the Royal Family is "affordable" or a "bargain" for taxpayers, because their cost is minor compared to other costs, and besides, they help to "generate tourism." This is incorrect. Tourists would continue to go to the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace whether or not the Royal Family was being subsidized to the tune of tens of millions of dollars annually. Money from the public treasury spent on the Royal Family is a sunk cost, a charity payment to the world's most undeserving charity. The Royal Family does not "work" for that money. The Royal Family does not sit inside Buckingham Palace from 9-5 every day, posing for pictures with tourists for $25 a pop. And even if they were, we certainly wouldn't pay them $50 million a year for that. Six pounds thirty one pence per hour, maybe.

The Royal Family did not "work" to acquire its property. The Royal Family did not "work" to acquire its wealth. The Royal Family did not "work" to acquire its prestige. All of these things have been passed down to them, due to the accident of their birth, after being accumulated over hundreds of years during which the humble citizens of the UK were obligated to give these things to the monarchy, lest they lose their heads. Though European history is littered with the corpses of royalty, it is littered far more heavily with the corpses of all of the millions upon millions of regular people who toiled in the shadows of grand castles and died in poverty as their taxes paid for the members of one lucky family to live in opulence.

The Royal Family is a grotesque relic of a less civilized time. The only just thing for a member of the Royal Family to do is, at age 18, to renounce all the privileges of their position and spend the remainder of their natural life denouncing the institution of monarchy and working feverishly to repay the public treasury for the outrageous and undignified years of support they've received. Since all of the current members of the Royal Family have passed the age of majority without having performed this basic nod towards civility, they are in contempt of the public trust. Confiscate their wealth, sell off their possessions, lock them up for theft, and strike all appropriations for the Royal Family from the public budget. Auction off the crown jewels, use the money to buy gasoline, and burn the queen's home to ground during a grand national celebration of the birth of a new society in which the public's money is put to use for the public's own benefit, and fame is accorded to those who have earned it by doing something more than being born with the right last name.

For the sake of all that is holy, please allow this Royal Baby to grow up free of the clutches of this crime family, lest its innocence be lost.